St John’s College L.25 and 26 (James 376 and 377)

Jeremiah Markland, Notes on the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. English, 1763-70

Jeremiah Markland, Fellow of Peterhouse (1693-1776): ‘Remarks on some few passages of the Four Evangelists, and of the Acts of the Apostles, ex Edit. Lond. 1763 2 voll. 8o (?) et Kusteri Lips. 1710. Fol.’ L.26 covers Matthew I to Luke xiii, L.25 includes Luke xiv to Acts xxviii.

Manuscript extra information

215x172 mm. (both vols), iv+fos 1-55 in L.26, fos 56-149 in L.25. College bookplates (1792) inside front covers. On title page in L.26, in Markland’s hand: ‘May 16 1770 If any body publishes any thing written in either of these Paper-Books, he will act directly contrary to the will of the Dead; these things being put down only out of Private Curiosity; many of them belike having been observed, or confuted, long ago.’ On the facing folio (iiiv) is pasted the conclusion from a letter, dated Milton [Court, near Dorking], 29 July 1770, from Markland to [?William Heberden], in which he agrees that ‘our Friend Mr [William] Bowyer’ may see what is scribbled in the margin of Markland’s Greek Testament, insisting nevertheless that nothing there should be made public ‘for which it was never designed, as, I think, is there exprest’. Markland’s notes were eventually edited, summarised and printed posthumously in Bowyer’s Critical Conjectures and Observations on the New Testament (3rd edn, London, 1782), this work carrying some ‘preliminary observations’ by Markland himself.

Autograph throughout, with many corrections. Paper. Marbled cardboard covers.